Mayor Guo wants mom to come out

Will the real mother of Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo please come out?

- JANVIC MATEO

To finally settle questions on her nationality, the camp of the embattled mayor is appealing for her biological mother to step forward.

"If you are the mother... if you really love your daughter, come out. Your daughter is going through this. You're

the only one who can say that she is your daughter," Guo's lawyer Stephen David said in Filipino over "Storycon" on One News yesterday.

Guo, in an earlier interview with ABSCBN News, claimed that she was born out of wedlock. Her biological mother, she said, was a kasambahay or helper of her Chinese father. She also claimed that her mother left her after she was born.

The mayor's claim regarding her mother's identity was contrary to the contents of her birth certificate, which was registered late with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

It identified her parents as Angelito Guo and Amelia Leal, who were supposedly married and had two other children.

A PSA official earlier told senators that Leal does not have existing records with the agency.

Asked about the possible falsification of documents, David said the Bamban mayor cannot be held criminally liable as she was not the one who registered her birth at the PSA.

"What she knows is that she is the daughter of her father's helper.

But the birth certificate in question, who submitted that?... She did not submit it, she has no participation in that regard, so how can she have any criminal liability?" added the lawyer.